Saturday, January 10, 2009

Dead Again

Two senior Al Qaeda operatives were killed in a CIA missile strike on New Year's Day in Pakistan, including a suspect in the bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in September, a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said Thursday.

The two operatives were also suspects in the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa for which they had been indicted in the United States, the official said.

Kidding aside, while I don't feel that we can kill our way to victory in the "war on terror," it's significant that we are able to navigate the Waziristan area and have success in finding al Qaeda remnants. But there is also a collateral problem with this, and that is the civilian casualties of Pakistanis and Afghanis that result from this barrage of air strikes, which feeds resentment and contributes to extremism. There needs to be a better regional strategy focused on international cooperation and local law enforcement rather than just a decapitation strategy. This counter-terrorism commitment between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a good start.